Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst and Margot Mottaz on What Second Nature Is Really Asking at NMACC

Immersive art has been on the fringes of the contemporary art world for most of its existence. That is changing. Works that ask visitors to move, respond, and become part of the installation rather than observe it from a distance have moved from art fair novelties to the subject of major institutional presentations globally, and the artists working in this space, among them teamLab, Random International, and Es Devlin, have become some of the most recognised names in contemporary art.

Second Nature, which opens at the Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre in Mumbai on July 3, 2026 and runs through January 10, 2027, brings nine large-scale installations by five of those artists across all four floors of the Art House. It is organised by Superblue, the experiential art venture co-founded by Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst, and curated by Dent-Brocklehurst alongside Superblue's head of curatorial, Margot Mottaz. For most of the five artists involved, this is their first meaningful presentation in India. Robb Report India spoke with both curators ahead of the opening.

Robb Report India: Second Nature takes on technology, nature, and our relationship to both. What was the precise question the show set out to ask?

Margot Mottaz (MM): The show is really about reflecting on our relationship to technology today, to nature, but also importantly to ourselves and to each other. It is about thinking about how technology is embedding itself into our everyday life and what that means for us presently and in the future. There is a lot of interaction and participation expected of visitors, but it also allows for deeper layers. That is the beauty of immersive art: it allows emotional engagement up front, people feel welcomed, it is a fun experience, but there is much deeper substance to the subject matter.

Mollie Dent-Brocklehurst (MDB): The accessibility of the exhibition is also important. Unlike some other museums and exhibitions, you do not really need to know about the work when you arrive. You find out right along the way. You can respond with your senses, with your emotion. There are layers, and by the time you leave, you realise that you have understood something, perhaps a deeper understanding of our relationship with nature, which is obviously a point of confusion at the moment. So many artists working in this space are using technology to replicate elements of nature, and that raises a fascinating question: are we asking technology in some way to reset our relationship with the natural world?

RR: How long did it take to move from the concept to the show that opens on July 3?

MM: From start to finish, probably a year in the making. The concept did not take a year. The execution did. Although some of these works have been presented in some format elsewhere in the world, in many cases they were created for this exhibition in a site-specific way, recreated with new technologies and new components. There was a significant amount of production involved.

RR: Several of the works in the show are fifteen to twenty years old. What makes them still feel urgent?

MDB: What has changed in the period that some of these artworks have existed is that they have become really mainstream. Fifteen or twenty years ago, this kind of work was on the fringe of the art world. People were wary of it. Now people have realised how important it is, how it impacts the way people see and think. And a lot of these artists have become global superstars in that period.

MM: While some of these works are existing concepts, this really shows that they have stood the test of time. That for me is a demonstration that they are great artworks, because they stay relevant. They may acquire new meanings or new interpretations as the years go by, because our natural world and the artistic landscape today are not what they were fifteen or twenty years ago. But these works are still relevant because they speak universally to issues that we all feel. And several of these works are sharing a space for the first time. On the third floor, for instance, Simon Heijdens and A.A.Murakami feel like a beautiful pairing in dialogue, but it is actually the first time they have been shown next to each other.

RR: Why these five artists specifically? And what did the selection process look like?

MM: It was about finding a complementary group where the art forms felt distinct, showing the breadth of what immersive art can be. People sometimes imagine immersive art to be a single thing, like projections, like a teamLab space. But it is a much vaster movement. We have four distinct floors, and the question was how to make them feel cohesive while showing a real range of projects, messages, formats, technologies, and interactions. Each artist has a distinct voice while the group as a whole feels complementary. There are also multiple levels of interaction, multiple ways in which each artwork responds to the visitor and to the environment.

MDB: Bringing teamLab to India in a meaningful way for the first time was something we felt strongly about. This is also a really unique teamLab work to have here because their immersive shows tend to be in much larger volumes. It is special to have this immersive three-part space with them. We work very closely with all five of these artists and have done for the last five to seven years, so they all felt very natural to us.

RR: How were the works adapted for an Indian audience without compromising their original intent?

MM: That was something we thought about a lot, in close collaboration with the teams at the Art House, who know this region and its audiences well. The beauty of this work is that it is very audience-centric. In all of the installations, it is really about your own body in a given space and in the collective of humanity. The works transcend borders in that sense. The updates were more to do with spatial characteristics, making sure everything felt seamless in these gallery volumes. But it was also about showing that great artwork simply transcends cultures. A silhouette in light, as you have with Random International, is something universal. We all have a body. We can all see ourselves reflected.

RR: What do you hope Indian audiences leave Second Nature with?

MM: I do not like to be didactic about what people should take away from an exhibition. It is about offering a chance for introspection, for reflection, prompting questions. The artists are offering their work and asking: what do you think? How do you engage with technology? Does this make you look differently? Personally, after I see shows on these subject matters, I tend to think more about how I use my phone, what I post online, what a tree looks like outside. I hope visitors come, enjoy the show, and maybe leave with a different perspective on their everyday life.

MDB: And an opportunity to introduce these artists to the Indian audience and to have them dig deeper into their practices. It is a first for everyone.

Second Nature is on view at the Art House, Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Centre, Mumbai, from July 3, 2026 through January 10, 2027.